


A Falling Knife

by badboy_fangirl



Category: Prison Break
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 19:04:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7186313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael dies, leaving Lincoln and Sara to their own devices; this is juxtaposed with flashbacks to a time when Michael and Veronica comforted each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Falling Knife

**Author's Note:**

> When I wrote this, back in 2007, it was the first time I'd written dark themed fic. It wasn't a popular thing then, which is funny to me now, just because Prison Break is a pretty dark show in reality, but fanfic at that time was more of an escapist, give-them-happiness type place. My warnings at the time were this:
> 
> _Okay, so this isn't like anything I've ever done before. So you might not like it. So here are my **WARNINGS:** CHARACTER DEATH, unpopular pairings of M/V and L/S, NC-17 SEX, SADNESS and TRAGEDY._
> 
> It was an experiment for me as a writer that now I wouldn't bat an eyelid at, but at the time it was SRS BSNS. LOL, it just makes me laugh now.

“My mom always said, _Never grab a falling knife_. I never knew what she meant until now.”

“Why would she say something like that to a little boy?”

He paused. “Maybe because she knew when we grew up, Linc would be the knife.”

 

 

“Before my mom died she told me to always take care of my brother.” He pushes out a heavy breath. “I never did a very good job.”

“Your mother never knew you’d face something like this.” The compassion is unexpected, but it does little to comfort him.

“Yeah, but even when I could have protected him, there were lots of times I failed.”

 

 

Wiping at her cheeks gently with his thumbs, he decided that her eyes had always been fathomless to him. He couldn’t see the bottom, though they were always clear and honest when he looked into them. He would stare at her face, the crooked smile and the too-big mouth especially, and he would know she wasn’t the prettiest girl in the world. He knew it in his mind.

But his heart couldn’t tell the difference between her green eyes shining at him and the smell that filtered through his mind when he’d hugged his mother. He couldn’t see a difference between who she was and how she made him feel.

And because he longed for that feeling, sometimes whatever he had to do to have it was all that mattered.

 

 

With her brown eyes welling up with tears, he can’t take away the bottle. He knows he should, he knows that of all the things that have gone wrong in the last two months, this will probably be the wrong-est, if there is such a word.

“You said no needles, so no needles. But I _need_ this. I need it,” she says, and he sits down next to her, pulling the cap off himself.

The sick thing is, he needs it too.

 

 

“We’ve talked about this so many times, haven’t we? Why don’t you just make a recording and push the button for me when I come crawling back like this? Why are you so patient with me?” she asked, still wiping at her cheeks, though wiping away the tears did nothing to prevent new ones from falling.

“I love him, too, Vee. I understand.” When she gave him a rueful look, he shrugged. It was a lie on a few different levels. “Okay, I _sort_ of understand. But what’s the point in me telling you that you can do better? You already know it. We just want Linc to be better. We want him to be the guy.” And if Lincoln could have been decent to Veronica, Michael had told himself numerous times, he wouldn’t have to imagine how _he_ would treat her so much better if she were _his_ girlfriend.

She sniffed. “The right guy. For the longest time I’ve told myself he’s the right guy for me, so everything else doesn’t matter. But really, everything else _does_ matter. And if it matters, he’s not the right guy.”

“I know,” Michael whispered, pulling her closer. She let her head fall against his chest and when she rubbed her cheek back and forth on his shirt he felt his heart start beating faster.

 

 

The first drop of liquor on his tongue causes his taste buds to explode with feeling. He passes her the bottle and watches as she tips it back. Her throat works, the long graceful line of it seizing up when the drink she takes is too much. Coughing, she nearly drops the bottle but he recovers it as she tries to put it back in his grasp.

Rubbing his hand across her back, he soothes her as the alcohol seeks to relieve them both of thought and worry. “It’s been a while,” she chokes out, her voice rough from the liquid sticking to her vocal chords.

“I know. That’s why I took a small sip. Gotta go slow. Gotta make it worth it.”

“Nothing can make it worth it,” she whispers, moving slightly to lean her shoulder against his chest.

He doesn’t say anything as he brings the bottle back to his lips.

 

 

Veronica knew this was wrong. Being here with Michael like _this_ was wrong, because he had that look. _The_ look. The look that said even though he was willing to comfort her while she cried over his brother _again_ , he longed for something from her.

And it was a perverse feeling that welled up within her, making her want the same thing. To get at Lincoln, to reward Michael. To make herself feel better. Her parting remark in her fight with Lincoln two days before had been, “Fuck you.” What better way to do that than to fuck his little brother?

Keeping her face pressed to his chest, she relaxed even more as her tears dried away. His hand spread out against her back, and she could feel all five of his long fingers moving slowly down until they splayed warmly at the base of her spine, not quite touching her ass. He wasn’t doing anything inappropriate, because for God’s sake, it was Michael, but she could feel his heart pounding under her ear and she could hear his breath, ragged and sharp, as it bounced off her forehead.

He was different than Lincoln, in so many ways. Gentle instead of rough, hesitant instead of demanding. She could feel his emotion, how much he hated his brother for what he had done to break her heart at the same time he sympathized with her in wishing Lincoln could be the way he used to before drugs and bad influences and unfortunate timing overtook his life. Michael felt something for her about _her_ , and he felt something for her about himself. And she needed to be with someone right now who appreciated her, and who needed something only she could give him.

And she really wanted to piss Lincoln off, even though he would never know who she’d fucked instead of him. She’d just make sure it got around to him somehow, that there had been someone else. He never needed to know it was Michael. It wouldn’t matter who it was, not to him. He would be equally furious about whomever she spread her legs for that wasn’t him. The secret thought that it would be the one person he would never suspect made her body tighten in anticipation. It was strangely its own aphrodisiac.

But would Michael understand if it was just for tonight? If for just one moment she was the bitchiest she could be? At his expense? She needed it. She needed to be the one who disappointed Lincoln for once.

 

 

Sara knows she’ll have to drink a whole lot more than half of this one bottle to stop feeling the pain. Lincoln probably doesn’t realize his whole “no needles” edict has profusely reminded her that they are without his brother, not just for tonight, but forever. And there isn’t enough alcohol in the world to take away the throbbing in her chest. But then again, there probably isn’t enough morphine either, because she can’t almost accidentally kill herself again. She has to live. She has to live, and so does Lincoln, because Michael died for them. If they die too, what was the point? What was the point of his broken body on a sandy beach in Panama, shot by some guy in a suit who claimed it was for the best?

No, she and Linc, they have to live. Keep on living. They've already discussed this at length.

He puts the bottle to her mouth and she lets him tip her head back as the last few drops slide into her parched mouth. “We need more,” he mutters, his hand tightening against the nape of her neck as one stray drop rolls from the corner of her mouth down her chin.

“Yeah,” is all she replies with before his lips are there, against her skin, catching the superfluous liquid.

Sara suddenly realizes she can dip her head slightly and her lips will be right under his, but when she heard him say they need more, her agreement had been for more liquor. As his lips slide unheeded down her throat, she realizes he means _more_. More than alcohol. More than something to block out Michael’s death. Something to prove they still live.

And living hurts so much more than dying, Sara is certain.

When his lips find the v-neck of her shirt and plunge deeper, she doesn’t object. As his arm curls around her waist and drags her over his lap, the buttons on her shirt pop open under his teeth. She cries out when his lips find her breast, his tongue swirling around her nipple, and the buzz from the alcohol escalates with the shot of sensation that radiates from his mouth throughout her body.

Her head falls back, her hands gripping his skull, holding him to her. She thinks apologetically towards the heavens, _Just this once_.

But when she hears Lincoln growl against her skin, “As many times as I can,” she knows she’s said it aloud.

 

 

Lifting her head, Veronica found his eyes on her, steely and shuttered. She’d seen that look before, the look he used to keep Lincoln from seeing how upset he was with whatever new predicament he found himself in. He’d been doing it for years, but now, at 19, Michael was a master. His eyes were unreadable, and he could either be sizing her up or feeling pity for her; she honestly wouldn’t have known except that at such close proximity his body betrayed him 100%.

She stretched her neck, bringing their faces into alignment. She looked into his eyes, and didn’t try to disguise what she was feeling or what she wanted. “Just tonight?” she asked, giving them both the easy out. If he said yes, she didn’t have to worry about it happening again, and if he said no, he didn’t have to worry that she’d ask again. She might want to hurt Lincoln, but never Michael. She touched his cheek softly with her fingertips.

“Vee…” he whispered, his eyes dropping away from hers as a big breath shuddered through his chest.

“We’ll never tell. It’ll just be tonight.” She lowered her gaze to his mouth. His lips were reddening right along with his cheeks. Everything he wanted was right there on his face, but with Michael, you never knew if he’d do what he wanted, or if he’d manacle himself with the self-control of one who had vowed to never lose the ground he’d gained. She bounced her lips off of his and waited.

“This is really messed up,” he acknowledged, his mouth quirking on one side.

“Is that a yes or a no?” Veronica asked.

 

 

Lincoln’s cock throbs inside his jeans so vividly he can see flashing lights behind his eyes. It isn’t that Sara turns him on this much as it is that he hasn’t let himself feel anything in so long that the floodgates have burst open with the slightly tipsy feeling the fifth of whiskey gave him. He could let himself feel the misery of his dead brother, or his son that is lost to him forever, just as good as dead, right along with his parents. He could let himself feel in its entirety the truth that Michael should just have let them kill him in Fox River. But instead, he lets his hand worm its way underneath Sara’s panties and he feels the dampness of her arousal against his fingers and his cock throbs even more ferociously. “God, I want you,” he mutters, but that’s not true either. He doesn’t want _Sara_. He just wants to not think about anything involving Michael.

As his fingers slide inside her though, all he can think is that Michael never got to do this. Michael never had a chance to touch her, not the way Lincoln is right now.

Somehow that’s the worst thing he can know right now and when Sara gasps and squirms against his hand, he closes his eyes to her pleasure. His thumb finds her clitoris, though, and a long, throaty moan drags from her and her fingernails dig into his bare chest. Her hips pump fast in rhythm with his rotating thumb and she shrieks and stiffens, and a flood of warmth coats his hand while his heart beats out in the cold.

 

 

He didn’t answer her question with words. Instead he leaned into Veronica until his lips pressed against hers. Veronica. Lincoln’s Veronica. He wasn’t stupid enough not to know what this was about, but he trusted that Veronica would never tell. Lincoln would never know it had been him.

And for this night, Michael would feel the feeling he hadn’t had since his mother died. Comfort; a soft touch that gave him a sense of all being right in the world. He knew Veronica wasn’t his mother, and what he was about to do with her wasn’t childlike at all, but for whatever reason, she had always brought a presence with her that reminded him of his mother. And in a few moments, he was going to be as close to her as he could get.

He didn’t have much experience kissing, but that didn’t seem to bother Vee. She teased him with her tongue and instinctively his tongue followed hers back into her mouth. Their lips twisted simultaneously and their tongues rubbed together, and Michael felt his excitement increase rapidly until he ached for something more. For something that he hadn’t had before.

His hand reached for her breast, cupping it through her clothes and even through her shirt and her bra he could feel the hardness of her nipple. He knew that meant something good, that she was feeling something similar to him, though he doubted she felt it as crazily as he did. He felt like his whole body was about to explode, just from her tongue on his and his hand filled up with her round flesh.

“Oh, God, Michael,” she breathed, her head tipping back. Her eyes were a darker green than he’d ever seen and she reached down and pulled her t-shirt over her head quickly. His eyes went to the bra now, to the lush curves he’d envisioned too many times. He’d seen Veronica in a bathing suit before, but this was different, and close up, and— _oh!_ Her hand brushed at the front of his jeans and he jumped. “Your roommate isn’t going to show up when we get to the good stuff, is he?” she asked, panting slightly.

Michael looked around his dorm room, and shook his head to clear it. _When they got to the good stuff?_ If this wasn’t the good stuff, he wasn’t sure he could handle what was the good stuff. “No,” he said rapidly. “And I locked the door when you came in, so even if he showed back up, he’d know, you know…” but he didn’t finish his sentence because his hands were shakingly unfastening her bra and her breasts were in his palms and she arched against him as she laid back on his bed. “Oh, Vee,” he breathed uncertainly. He didn’t know if he could handle all the stimuli coming at him, so he laid his head against her breasts and closed his eyes.

 

 

Sara rests against him for a few minutes, maybe only a few seconds, and he intends to end it here, not seek his own release, not in the face of Michael, not in the thought that his brother can somehow see him, or might know what he’s doing. He’ll just wrap her in the bed sheet and wait until she falls asleep and then he’ll sneak out. He’ll take enough money to get him to the next place, but leave the rest for her and she can have that. Michael would want her to be taken care of.

But before he can lift her up in his arms and move from the sofa they’ve been sitting on across the small cabin to the bed, she slides out of his arms to the floor between his legs. Her fingers pull his belt loose and her eyes move up to his as she unbuttons and unzips his pants.

Regardless of the fact that he shouldn’t let this happen, that they shouldn’t have gotten drunk, and he isn’t even drunk enough to not know what he’s doing, he still has a hard-on, and when Sara wraps her fingers around him, it does nothing to dissipate the swelling in his lower regions. In fact, what her fingers don’t do to inspire more blood to flood that area, her lips entice totally as she leans forward and takes him in her mouth.

His fingers knot in her hair, but he locks his jaw, keeping words from coming out. He doesn’t want to say her name, he doesn’t want to think of who she is and that she isn’t the one who should be doing it, and he certainly isn’t the one who should be receiving it. With no warning, his mind goes back, to other warm lips and another flicking tongue and he can smell Veronica more vividly than he has in all the years since the last time he was like this with her. And then it’s her fingernails digging into his thighs and her throat contracting around him as he moves without conscious thought.

When he comes, his bottom lip bleeds her name, the one he wishes for, not the one he’s with.

 

 

Veronica’s fingers slid up the back of his neck, caressingly, comfortingly. “It’s all right,” she cooed, tugging at him gently, bringing his face up to hers.

Their foreheads came together and Michael whispered a confession that he didn’t see any way around. “I’ve never done this before, Vee.”

Her fingers spread out against the back of his head. “Really?” she asked quietly.

He nodded his head.

“You don’t want to do this with me, then,” she said. “You should do this with someone—“

“No,” he said quickly. “I _do_ want to do it with you, and I have a vague idea of how to do it, but I just…” He paused, took a deep breath and looked into her eyes unflinchingly. “I wanted you to know, in case it’s not very…good.”

When Veronica’s eyes filled with tears, he wasn’t sure what they were for, and his confusion was starting to chase away his arousal. Then her hands cupped his face warmly and she brushed her lips softly along the curve of his bottom lip. “You shouldn’t want to do this with me,” she whispered. “But if you’re sure, Michael, I’ll make it good for you.”

Holding himself over her on one elbow, he shook his head. “But it should be good for both of us…and I know I won’t be—“

She pressed her fingers to his lips. “This will be for me, exactly what it should be. All about you. Don’t worry. I’ll teach you. I’ll show you how to make it good for me.”

The tension that had invaded his shoulders when he first told her disappeared with her words. This was exactly why he loved Veronica, and why he thrilled to steal even these few moments from his brother. He knew afterwards, even a few weeks from now, she would probably be back with Lincoln, but it wouldn’t matter, because he would have this. This memory, this sweetness that was his and his alone, and no one could ever take that from him.

Her total acceptance relaxed his nerves, but brought his urgency back 10-fold and he pressed his lips to hers enthusiastically. She shifted beneath him and he landed on top of her perfectly, her breasts cushioning his chest and her legs spreading slightly to let him nestle between them. The ecstasy of it was almost enough to make him come in his jeans, but he took a deep breath and stilled himself. 

 

 

Sara climbs back into his lap after a few moments of lung-heaving recovery, and Lincoln’s hands land on her hips, which are nothing but silky skin beneath his fingers. He opens his eyes and sees that she’s totally naked now, and not inclined in the least to be done with what they have been doing.

“Did you think about him while I came in your mouth?” he asks, because he has to know that she is somewhere else too, not on this boat with him, but outside of it, in some miraculous place where things are the way they should be.

Her eyes are partly sad with pain and partly bright with anticipation, as though making him ejaculate is a triumph she has never known before. “I think about him all the time,” she says, not giving him exactly what he wants.

He roughly grabs her by the back of her neck, jerking her closer to his face. “I’m going to fuck you, and I want you to scream his name when you come.”

Her eyes dilate even further, the brown irises obscured by black pupils and Lincoln sees his soul in those dark depths. He should have died, not Michael. He should have died, not Veronica. He should have died, not Aldo. And Sara should have something to ease her pain, but not him. “Yes,” she agrees, wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling his mouth to hers. She bites his already bleeding bottom lip and he hisses in pain, the howling wind of it whipping through him, propelling him to his feet to stumble a few feet to the bed. Dumping her down, he spreads her knees, holding her legs apart with his hands. Burying his face there, he breathes deeply of her smell, but regrets it instantly because it’s not the smell he’d imagined a few moments before. 

He knows she’s not Veronica, and there’s no way to get that back, so instead he channels the methodical intensity of his brother and sets his mouth on her, determined to drive her wild before he leaves her nothing but a pile of money to comfort her.

 

 

By the time they were both naked and Veronica was sucking in a breath as he pushed inside of her, Michael’s every cell was alive and aware and totally involved in what he was doing. He had often held himself in his own tight fist and imagined this moment, but nothing compared to it. She was tighter than his fist ever could be and warmer and wetter than he could have ever dreamed. Those three things combined sent his mind spinning as he panted and tried to control the urge to ram himself into her.

Her hands slid down his back and over the curve of his bottom, pulling him closer, even though he didn’t think it was possible to get any closer to her. She shifted again, her legs wrapping around his hips and he pressed his elbows deep into the mattress in an effort to hold his chest up off of hers. “Veronica,” he gasped, kissing her lips repeatedly, all the while phrases fell out of his mouth like, “Never felt this way before,” and “Am I hurting you? Does it hurt? Oh, God, you feel so good,” and “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…” but he didn’t even know what it was exactly that he couldn’t do, and she just murmured his name and shushed him, before she moved her hips against his.

He groaned loudly and she giggled, shushing him again before whispering, “Move your hips like this,” and she demonstrated again, which only seemed to incite him further until he was doing what she hadn’t really taught him. Instinct took over and his lips found hers while he hammered into her. She drew one of his hands down between them and placed his finger against her clit, whispering to him how to move the digit so that it rendered her speechless. He marveled as it worked, because her eyes rolled back in her head and her hips moved hungrily against his and suddenly they were both there, in the throes, and Michael wanted to watch her face, but he couldn’t because he felt like his brain had imploded as everything went black.

 

 

Sara had been fucked hard a time or two in her life, that she can recall. She’d probably been fucked really hard while high as a kite, but none of that really comes back to her clearly. But she’s never been fucked quite like this. As if she is hated but treasured, as if she is the center of the universe, but not quite deserving of it. Lincoln is ruthless in his domination, his lips and tongue and teeth so involved in every part of her body that she is bruised and soothed at the same time, and when he finally joins their bodies, she closes her eyes and focuses with all her might on the image of Michael that she had conjured just for this moment.

He is sweaty and hot, hard and strong, and moving inside her so rightly, like a dance that he has practiced so many times, she soars to the edge of oblivion and then teeters back as he slows his movements to extend the moment beyond anything she can properly comprehend. This is how she knew he would be, so perfect, so right for her, the perfect dream that she had always searched for. The perfect man to run away with forever, and never look back on the life that has never given her anything anyway.

When she comes, she does call his name, but it’s all for naught. She knows it isn’t him in her arms, or deep inside her, because if it were him, she wouldn’t be afraid to open her eyes, and she wouldn’t be thinking of how her life had finally given her one thing, only to take it right back in the form of his still body, the light extinguished from his eyes forever. She wouldn’t sob uncontrollably into his brother’s shoulder and hear him whispering, “I know, I know,” and she wouldn’t know that he did know, and that he had tried to make her forget but as long as they are with each other, neither of them will ever forget.

It’s an impossibility to forget the one you love most when the one he loved most lies beside you every night.

 

 

Veronica laid very still under the collapsed body of someone other than Lincoln. She had never made love with anyone except him, and she acknowledged that she had just made love with Michael. She might have tried to fuck him, but it could never be that way with him. Even if he hadn’t been a virgin, he was too sweet. He was too _Michael_. 

He was too in love with her to ever treat her badly. When Michael loved, it was to extremes. He couldn’t do anything half-heartedly. He was so different than his brother. Because Lincoln felt he could never do it well enough he never even tried, whereas Michael didn’t understand anything other than utter perfection. He wouldn’t quit even in impossible circumstances. Lincoln, beat back by life so many times, would either fight like a madman or give up with seeming indifference, as though he never cared at all. She’d seen him beat the hell out of someone just because she was on a date with the guy and she’d seen him act as though he couldn’t care less about what she thought of him. Michael didn’t understand anything other than trying to make you feel his love, and he had just poured everything he could into this moment with her.

He moved to lay beside her, his eyes open and worshipful on her face, his hand running up and down her body, touching her as much as he could in this window of time she had allowed him. She smiled at him because of all the conflicting emotions running through her, the one thing that was undeniable was the pleasure she had just felt with him and because of him. “Thank you, Michael,” she whispered.

“I love you, Vee,” he whispered in return, unable to keep it to himself.

“I know you do,” she replied. “You know I love you, too, right?”

He nodded jerkily and smiled shyly at her. “I know. I know.” He squeezed her to him and buried his face in her shoulder. “Will you stay here with me for a while?” he asked.

Veronica shifted so she could wrap her arms around him. “Of course, I will,” she answered. “I’ll stay as long as you want me too.”

She knew he knew it was a lie, but it was the only answer she could give him.

 

 

Sara falls asleep sometime after the storm of tears engulfs her. She thinks Lincoln probably cried with her, but she just clung blindly to him until the next thing she is aware of is the silence of the boat cabin they’ve shared for some time, but never as intimately until now. She knows before she opens her eyes, but she doesn’t want to know. As much as she’d give anything for Michael to be back with her, she knows that being alone will be worse than being with Lincoln.

She reaches out, but the bed is empty beside her. She whispers, “Lincoln?” to the room and when no sound comes back to her, she says his name again in her full voice.

Sitting up, she clutches a pillow to her bare, whisker-burned breasts and looks around. The cabin is no different than it's been since Michael's death, except that Lincoln is gone. The backpack full of money still sits in the corner, in plain view, though the top zipper is partially opened. He must have taken some money with him, and she can’t help but wonder if he left the rest of it out of the goodness of his heart or just because he didn’t want to take anything with him that reminded him of his brother.

Because she knows he isn’t coming back.

Sara remembers back to three days before Michael died. They’d been on the deck of the _Christina Rose_ , enjoying the sun. He’d been telling her stories about their childhood when he suddenly told her the anecdote of advice his mother had once given him. “My mom always said, _Never grab a falling knife_. I never knew what she meant until now.”

“Why would she say something like that to a little boy?”

He paused. “Maybe because she knew when we grew up, Linc would be the knife.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“He cuts everything. We’re completely severed, Sara. From everything that ever mattered to us. It’s not his fault, but it’s the way he is. We’re here because of him. Can you live with that?” His eyes had been intense, deep, looking into hers thoroughly, as though any little lie she might try to tell would be perfectly transparent to him.

“I can live with anything, as long as I’m with you,” she said.

She’d meant it.

 

 

Fighting like hell hadn’t done any good, so he tells himself he just doesn’t give a fuck.

It's too late now to make a difference.

Michael always said there was more to do, more _they_ could do. Lincoln's first mistake was letting himself be duped into believing that. Now, none of it matters anyway.

Nothing he can do will bring Michael back; everything he does only reminds him of Michael's absence. Sailing on the boat his brother had built, spending the money his brother found, fucking the woman he loved.

Lincoln Burrows hunches his shoulders against the tropical breeze. It’s not cold, just strong, and it hurts his ears a little, with the wind whipping around them. As he walks away from the beautiful yacht, and the $5 million dollars, and the gorgeous woman, he thinks about his baby brother. That was all his; it all belongs to Michael, and because he can’t have it, neither can Lincoln. He doesn’t want it, he reminds himself.

And it’s true. Because without Michael in the world the only thing Lincoln has to keep him company is the knowledge that he must go on living. Living in a world that no longer contains any of the reasons he ever would have wanted to stay alive.


End file.
